North by Pacific Northwest: the Films of Kelly Sears
Apr 19, 2015
Visiting filmmaker Kelly Sears in attendance!
Join us for an evening with animator and filmmaker Kelly Sears, whose politically potent collage animation media practice draws from genres such as experimental film, documentary, essay films, recycled cinema and critical fiction.
Sears uses appropriated imagery from Post WW2 America, reworking discarded magazines, books, orphaned films and other ephemera to investigate contemporary political narratives of power. From Manifest Destiny to expansionist doctrines, from occupation to surveillance, she uses a combination of analog and digital animation, video processing and sound design to intervene with source images and uncover meaning.
Kelly Sears’ work has screened at museums, galleries and film festivals, such as MOMA, The Hammer Museum, LACMA, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Machine Project, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Light Industry, Sundance Film Festival, Ann Arbor Film Festival and Black Maria Film Festival. She has been awarded residencies from Yaddo, The Core Program/Museum of Fine Arts Houston, and the Galveston Artist Residency. Currently she teaches film and animation at the University of Colorado, Boulder.
- Don’t miss a hands-on animation class led by Kelly on April 19!
GET UP AND STOP DOWN with Kelly Sears
April 19 (Sunday)
Tuition: $110 ($90 for Members)
Learn the basics of stop-motion film production as you construct a DIY downshooting rig and use Dragonframe stop-motion software! As a class, you will collaboratively create a 2D cut out and collage stop-motion film that uses Pacific Northwest imagery of Bigfoot, wild animals and native Northwestern lore. Register Now >
Screening Program
PATTERN FOR SURVIVAL, 2015, 6:35
As you read the rest of this manual, keep in mind the need for a survival pattern.
THE DRIFT, 2007, 8:20
A mysterious disappearance on a late 1960s space journey entrances the nation. This film reexamines the nature of our country’s expansionist endeavors and the desire to push too far, too fast.
COVER ME ALPHA, 2011, 2:30
Names of maneuvers and procedures from a military yearbook re-caption the activities of soldiers in battle.
THE BODY BESIEGED, 2009, 4:00
An exploration of the darker side of getting in shape. Animated instructional photographs from yoga and workout books reveal bewitched and frenzied bodies and maneuvers.
VOICE ON THE LINE, 2009, 6:45
Figures from archival films from the 1950s are recast in a large-scale secret operation that veers bizarrely off course. The film reflects on current relationships among national security, civil liberties and telephone companies.
IMPRINTED, 2011, 2:00
Clear tape, newspaper ink and sheets of acetate. Traces from the week of the failed rapture, destructive tornadoes and other discord in 2011.
ONCE IT STARTED IT COULD NOT END OTHERWISE, 2011, 7:30
Candid photos from 1970s high school yearbooks resurface in a minimalist horror story. An unknown force seeps into the walls of the school that eerily mirrors larger political and social markers of the recent past.
HE HATES TO BE SECOND, 2008, 3:00
Excavated text fragments from a 1963 article about Robert Kennedy from a magazine are collaged with visual fragments from other popular 1963 publications.
THE RANCHER, 2012, 7:00
A parafictional newsreel chronicling a series of terrible dreams unhinges a man in power.
TROPICAL DEPRESSION, 2012, 2:45
Images from recent hurricanes and the 1931 Miss Universe Contest are collaged into an animated séance that channels Galveston's haunted history.
JUPITER ELICIUS, 2010, 5:05
A storm transcends a meteorologist’s predictions. Commissioned for the Orbit(film) project.